Needham High School Environmental Club at GO GREEN Needham Expo

The GO GREEN Needham Expo on Saturday, November 10 from 10 am to 4pm at Needham Town Hall showcases how community are working to reduce our community’s carbon footprint. To see a full list of participants, click here. Hope to see you there!

At Needham High School’s Environmental Action Club, we’ve been working with Green Needham on passing a town-wide ban on single-use plastic bags. As high schoolers, this project has been a great opportunity to get involved with environmental initiatives within our entire Needham community. We’ve been really excited to expand our reach outside of just the high school and interact with Needhamites who share our passion for the environment.

In the Fall 2017, some of us began attending Green Needham meetings after connecting with some of the Green Needham volunteers. We were thrilled with how inclusive Green Needham was to us, and we have been working with them ever since.

We worked with the Bag Ban team, whose main focus was promoting a plastic bag ban. We were also in support of this ban, as we have all done research on the negative environmental effects of plastic bags on the environment. We also spoke with representatives of the Needham Recycling and Transfer Station to learn more about the negative effect of plastic bags on town expenses. Most people do not know how to properly recycle plastic bags, so they often end up in the wrong bin at the RTS and get caught in the machines, forcing the machines to stop. This is a frequent and costly occurrence. So, we had learned that plastic bags are both bad for the environment and the Needham economy, which had been a concern of opponents of the ban.

With the help of Green Needham, we were able to attend a town meeting and help testify to the board of selectmen about the ban. Though we were disappointed that the selectmen opted for a voluntary ban instead of a compulsory ban, we are still glad that we made our voices heard and affected town legislature!

We look forward to continuing our partnership with Green Needham and are hopeful to accomplish our goal of passing a mandatory bag ban!

The EAC Bag Ban Team wrote this blog post. To learn more about how the young leaders at the Needham High School’s Environmental Action Club are making a difference, speak with them at the GO GREEN Needham Expo.